Last night there was a special analysis on AP in CNN IBN. It indicates that Congress will end up the winners with the TDP finishing second. Our own Praja Rajyam has been declared to be coming in third.

Lets not deride the efforts that have gone into the exercise. Lets also not attribute motives as is done normally. As a responsible and respectable channel, lets believe that they have actually gone about it without any bias or favour. But then, it is very obvious that the whole exercise does not reflect the ground realities. Here is an attempt to analyse the analysis.

Vote Share

The channel puts the vote share of the Congress at 51% and that of the TDP at 42%.

Obviously because of such high vote share attributed to these parties, they draw a valid inference that PR has to get atleast 25% votes to be able to win even a few seats.

But, the reality is the Congress vote share is only 41.56% as mentioned in IBN Politics website itself. The 51% vote share is probably after taking into account both the TRS and the Left votes. But they are no longer with them. Hence no more than 41.5% can be attributed to Congress.

In addition when a mega alliance of the type sewed up last time happens, there are a lot of voters who get swayed to vote for that alliance due to psychological factors. Hence, in the absence of the alliance the vote share of Congress is bound to come down even further from the 41.5%. This may get accentuated by the reverse of psychological factors that worked in its favour the last time.

Besides, the people who were fed up with the misrule of TDP had no choice but to vote for the only other alternative, that is the Congress alliance. This also has added to the increased vote share of the Congress. Hence the actual vote share of the Congress can be guesstimated to be no more than 30 to 35%.

The vote share of TDP was 33.12%. Lets say since the Left and TRS are with the TDP now, the 10% that we deducted from Congress tally should go to the TDP combine now. There is no denying that if TDP has been able to get 33% votes despite a grand alliance against it, it is certainly better placed this time around with the alliance in its company. But then we need to consider certain other factors as well.

a) There is a strong 33% vote (by inference from TDP’s vote share even in its worst election) against Congress and it went to TDP because that was the only alternative. This time around we have the formidable presence of PRP with its chrismatic leader Chiranjeevi providing a credible and viable alternative. Remember how NTR was able to win an election in less than six months of floating a party.

b) PRP will naturally draw its voters from both the Congress and the TDP. All those votes who are unhappy with the Congress and TDP, will vote in favour of PRP. Its a well known fact that where there is a clear and viable alternative and a charismatic leader presenting such alternative, people will plumb for it, as is evident from the example of MGR’s ADMK which swept the polls in 1977 despite the presence of (then believed to be formidable) DMK and the Congress, in the fray.

c) Therefore the vote share of Congress is likely to shrink further and so is with the TDP. Even the alliance votes may not get transferred since people are disenchanted with the TRS as refelected from the bye election results where TRS was rebuked. The people of Telangana had clearly shown their anger against TRS, by even voting TDP and Congress even though they had publicly stated that they were against the new state, at that time.

d) Hence it can be reasoanbly guesstimated that the vote share of TDP alliance is also not likely to be not more than 30 to 35%.

Purely under this scenario, if PRP were to get about 25% vote share it will not get a mere 5 seats as was made out by CNN IBN but is likely to get much more.

But, there are other factors to be considered as well, which will tilt the balance in favour of PRP.

Age Factor

The channel itself admits that PRP will draw the young voters. But does not seem to have given the weightage it deserves.

a) It must be noted that AP will have a whopping 55 lakh additional voters this time. That is more than 10% of the total voters in 2004. Almost all of which will be young voters and it can be resonably concluded that they will all vote for PRP, by the channel’s own admission of the PRP’s ability to draw young voters.

b) Even form the traditional voters of Congress and TDP most of the young voters are likely to shift loyalties this time. This is not merely because of Chiranjeevi’s charisma or the cinema influence but simply because there is a credible viable alternative. Youth will simply want to change the old order which has miserably failed them.

c) These young voters are not only expected to vote in large numbers for PRP but can be expected to canvass extensively for the PRP, turning in a large number of undecided voters for the party.

The combined effect of the youth’s personal votes and their involvement and energy is likey to increase the vote share of PRP manifold and bringing down the vote share of TDP and the Cngress in the process. Therefore it can be reasonably concluded, that when it comes to vote share the PRP will edge out the other two parties and not finish third as CNN IBN makes out.

Vote Concentration

The channel says that the area of influence of PRP is largely in East and West Godavari districts and in the southern districts. It almost writes off the party in Telangana and gives negligible presence in the rest of AP.

If this were so, and if as the channel suggests PRP is able to get a vote share of 25% in a wave, such vote share is likely to be largely confined to these districts. It then becomes unfathomable how with such high concentration of votes in a very few districts, PRP will get only 5 seats. It is but natural that where votes are concentrated in very few pockets, the party is only likely to sweep those districts. Therefore the channel should have given atleast about 10 seats to PRP. On the contrary it gives only a maximum of 5 which defies logic.

Therefore, it can be concluded, that these findings by the CNN IBN need not be taken seriously at all. With all respects to them, i must say that they have erred in their assessment. The groundswell of support for PRP has to be seen on the ground. Surely the voters of AP will prove the pundits wrong on the 16th of May. I earnestly appeal to the voters to turn up in large numbers and pave the way for the progress of AP by voting for PRP. Lets ring in the change in our lives by bringing in a bold new party with a bold new programme of “Praja Rajyam”.

- By Uma Vijaykumar